The invention disclosed herein relates generally to metering systems and more particularly to the refunding of value in prepaid metering systems.
Postage meters are conventional devices that are used to print an indication of paid postage value on a mailpiece. The indication of paid postage value is typically in the form of a postage indicium and may include, in addition to the postage value, a date and/or time the postage indicium was printed, a meter serial number, a mailed from zip code, and cryptographically secure data that can be used by the postal authority to verify the authenticity of the postage indicium.
Included in the postage meter is a vault which accounts for the value of postage received and dispensed by the postage meter. The vault typically includes a descending register, an ascending register and a control sum register. The descending register reflects the amount of funds currently available for dispensing, while the ascending register reflects the total amount of funds dispensed by the postage meter over time. The control sum register is the sum of the ascending and descending registers.
Currently, when a postage meter is to be taken out of service, a meter manufacturer service representative retrieves the postage meter from the customer and contacts a postage refill data center. The service representative provides the data center with a special request code for authorization to zero the postage meter""s registers. The data center returns a special code to the service representative which is entered into the postage meter together with an amount of xe2x80x9c$0.00xe2x80x9d to indicate to the postage meter that a special register clear operation is to be performed. The postage meter then resets the registers of the postage meter to 0. The amount of funds in the descending register prior to its zeroing out is then refunded to the licensed postage meter user.
The above procedure may encounter problems since it relies on the customer service representative to be accurate in reading the postage meter registers and putting that information correctly into a computer or on a piece of paper for manual processing.
In the PERSONAL POST(trademark) postage meter product produced by Pitney Bowes Inc., an improvement was made to the existing refund process. A customer who no longer desires the postage meter or is getting a new postage meter places a call to the data center. The data center, knowing that the postage meter is in a pending withdrawal status, sends a command to the postage meter requesting that a debit be made to the postage meter for an amount equal to that of the current descending register value. The postage meter, upon receipt of the command, debits for the appropriate amount and generates the digital tokens (used for indicium verification) that would have been printed on the mailpiece if the deducted amount was assumed to be dispensed postage. The digital tokens and other information that would have been printed on the mailpiece are electronically sent to the data center for verification in order to ensure that the postage meter properly deducted the appropriate amount of funds. The postal authority is then notified by the data center of the amount to be refunded to the customer and a check is drawn by the postal service and sent to the customer for such refund amount. This refund method requires data center communication with the postage meter and the postal service to ensure a proper refund is given. In this system, if any system links are down, then delays in the processing of the customer refund may occur.
A common problem in all of the refund methods described above is that they require communication with the postage meter vendor infrastructure (data center) to trigger the appropriate refund to the customer. What is needed is a refund process that eliminates the requirement for specialized refund communications with the vendor and allows the postal service, who is in control of the customer""s postage account funds, to directly deal with its customer.
The present invention overcomes the problems discussed above in connection with conventional postage metering refund systems by providing a method for requesting a postage refund including the steps of generating a postage indicium having a postage value and first data indicative that a refund of the postage value is requested; and printing the postage indicium on a mailpiece.